Elections Monitoring and Technology

During the 2013 general elections in Kenya the crowdsourced election monitoring project Uchaguzi ran in parallel with ordinary domestic and international election observations. Such monitoring projects have been performed in several countries, and research on the methods and effects of crowdsourced election monitoring is increasing. In particular, scholars are focusing on the political significance of such projects, whether value is generated for citizen participation in democratization and political engagement. Very few studies have looked at the actual content of the reports generated through such projects and compared the findings of the crowd with official election reports. This study investigate the content of 2300 sms reports in the Uchaguzi dataset, and compare the story revealed in these reports with the conclusions in the election observation report from a recognized institution, the Carter Center. The report from the domestic monitoring group ELOG is also used for reference. The aim is to evaluate the relevance and reliability of the crowdsourced reports.
The findings show that the Uchaguzi reports indeed presented a relevant picture of the events on election day. The crowd focus on how smoothly they were able to perform the voting, on security and injustice like bribery or intimidation. They are far less occupied with electoral formalities and processes. Monitoring in near realtime enables the platform to be an alert central for urgent reports. Logging time and location for each message generates timelines and geographical overview that traditional reports does not. The findings suggest that crowdsourced election monitoring project can benefit from a further development of the questions asked to the crowd. Today these are to a large extent inherited from traditional observation methodologies.

Elections can decide the political course of nations for years and even decades, and pose critical moments for a range of human rights, including the freedoms of expression and association, and the rights to privacy and political participation. An election's success depends on transparent and accountable protection and promotion of these rights. As voting and identification procedures become digitized, technology is increasingly inextricable – and influential – during elections, in ways that authorities have yet to address. While modern computing methods, in particular cloud-based machine learning, which is fuelled by big data technology, constitute a paradigm shift in how we interact and communicate and enhance the protection of human rights, their role in undermining has been under spotlight, especially in the conduct of elections. Some of the challenges include the use of social media for propaganda and questions around the integrity of electronic voting, as we saw in Kenya. The misuse of technology has negatively impacted on the freedom to participate in the political process. Yet, the same technologies that potentially threaten rights also provide opportunities for their enhanced protection. For example, social media has been used to provide information to voters vital for them to make informed choices. Drawing on the wide range of interdisciplinary panellists, the panel will consider both the opportunities for the enhanced protection of human rights by technologies, the threats they pose and approaches that need to be adapted to meet the rapidly evolving technological landscape. Below, we have listed the panel topics and lead panellist on each topic.

In April and June 2014, Afghanistan conducted its first democratic transition of power. This commentary provides a first-hand account and appraisal of the conduct of the elections, and begins by capturing first the atmospherics of polling day, and then reviews some lasting impressions of the same. After identifying some of the common themes and strands that characterised the polling including, polling procedures, individual and/or team performances of election officials, logistical shortcomings, and the security measures put in place, etc. the commentary concludes by advocating for the continued improvement (best practices) of the electoral enterprise.

GIS based electoral system provides efficient database and also be useful to enhance officials to conduct and manage elections. This research is aimed at using Geographic Information System based approach to monitoring election in Awka South L.G.A of Anambra State. The methodology employed in this research involves conversion of analogue map into digital map (through the process of scanning), georeferencing and digitizing, updating the study road map using Google Earth image. Other processes includes: Plotting of coordinate points, Geo-database creation and queries generations. GIS based mapping is one of the best techniques of depicting spatial data, the location the polling unit was depicted and it was noticed that there are no polling units located at around/within Ngozika and Udoka Housing units.

This chapter examines two domestic election monitoring organizations in Turkey, Vote and Beyond and Ankara’s Votes. After preliminary research on these organizations’ reports and media appearances that were later complemented with data collected via interviews and surveys carried out with these organizations’ founders and volunteers, this study reveals that despite their claims to neutrality, non-partisanship, and being “above politics”, and despite the increasingly geographical nature of cleavages within the Turkish electorate, these organizations tend to mirror the political culture and voting behavioral characteristics of secular coastal areas in the west at the expense of the southeastern Kurdish and conservative/nationalistic central areas.